Diamond particles have long been recognized as an excellent abrading material, and such diamonds have been distributed throughout resin and metal matrices, as well as being bonded to surfaces, metal and others. This art has early recognized that diamond particles can be bonded to metal bodies or surfaces by electrodepositing nickel in an electrochemical bath. The electrodeposition of nickel to bond diamond particles on the entire abrading surface of a bowl type disc is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,360,798. The foregoing U.S. Pat. No. 2,360,798 teaches the nonselective bonding of diamond particles to the entire metal abrading surface of a disc held horizontally in an electrochemical bath with subsequent dislodgment of diamond particles on a holding member and final bonding by vertical placement of the disc in the electrochemical bath. Other approaches have been made in the art for nonselectively holding diamond particles on a disc body, such as using a petroleum jelly base to hold the diamond particles and then heat pressing the particles into the metal support, such a procedure shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,427,565. Similar nonselective embedding of diamond particles and later bonding by electrodeposition is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,464.
Another approach is shown in U.S. Pat No. 3,762,895 wherein fillers are used to initially hold the diamond particles in nonselective manner on an abrading surface, and then such fillers are subsequently removed by a washing step so that the individual diamond particles can be locked by electrodeposition of nickel. The use of a fabric material to lock diamond particles and hold them in position during subsequent electrodeposition has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,424,140.
Another attempt to nonselectively mask a side of a disc to resist electrodeposition of nickel is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,571,772 where grease or metal oxide film is used on one side of a disc to prevent nickel bonding. The other side of the disc is physically prevented from receiving nickel deposition so that only the rim surface has the diamond particles bonded thereto.
The present invention is concerned with providing interspersed free resist and metal conductive zones on an abrading surface of a body, and one embodiment for obtaining such interspersed zones is to utilize a screen having openings through which resist liquids are applied to the metal abrading surface. U.S. Pat. No. 2,424,140 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,571,772 teach the use of fabric materials or sieves to hold particles of diamonds in position for subsequent locking by electrodeposition. The silk screen approach for abrading tools has been shown in U.S. Pat. no. 3,631,638 wherein a mixture of binder and diamond particles is laid down through a silk screen on a support, and then such binder is later cured. This teaching is not at all concerned with interspersing conductive and resist zones for selective locking of diamond particles on the abrading surface by electrodeposition.